EU's Brexit negotiator puts time pressure on Britain

Associated Press ^ | Dec. 6, 2016 9:32 AM EST | Pan Pylas

[Olog-hai]

Britain may not have two years to negotiate its divorce from the European Union after all.

The EU’s chief negotiator on Brexit warned Tuesday that the country will have less than 18 months once talks begin and that it won’t be allowed to pick and choose what parts of the EU it wants to keep.

While steering away from specifics on what a Brexit deal might look like, Michel Barnier, who took up his post months ago after Britain voted in June to leave the EU, said formal procedures at the start and the end of the talks will cut into the time Britain has to leave the 28-nation bloc.

“Time will be short,” he said. “All in all there will be less than 18 months to negotiate.” …

[Olog-hai]

This guy went from being a Gaullist to being a real EU apparatchik. The EU always wanted to dictate the terms here; Article 50 gives no advantages to the departing “member state”.

[PJBankard]

I would like to see the EU enforce their BS terms on a nation that no longer is part of the EU.

[Olog-hai]

They impose all sorts of stuff on non-member nations. Remember the GE-Honeywell merger?

And of course, members of the European Economic Area are not EU “member states”—but they have to follow EU regulations and directives (i.e. laws).

[Mr Radical]

IMHO putting time pressure on Britain is good news. The lack of progress so far is proof that the new prime minister Teresa May is treading water and stalling.

[Olog-hai]

Why?

Article 50 gives the EU all the advantage. If May had the kind of backbone of a Thatcher (which she does not), she’d invoke “rebus sic stantibus” instead. Her being pro-EU, she would likely use this bullying announcement by Barnier to try to utterly reverse the referendum.

[Mr Radical]

“rebus sic stantibus”
That’s a good point, but I think that could be construed as hostile. There’s no need to tear-up the treaty or declare UDI. It can be done within the terms of their own treaty (Article 50) and this gives the other parties the due time to make whatever adjustments they need - such as patching the massive hole it will leave in their budget.
Otherwise they will have an excuse for blaming Britain for anything that goes wrong in the rest of the EU.

Calling Article 50 doesn’t affect any negotiations at all - it sets the default exit date two years on IF it hasn’t completed prior or negotiations fail, for any reason.

My understanding is that David Cameron promised Article 50 would be called : by March 2017 at the latest. May seems to have morphed that to : in March 2017 unless there are any obstacles.

My worry is she’s giving time for the remainers to gather their forces.

[Olog-hai]

I don’t see how the EU violating its own treaty for its own convenience cannot be considered hostile towards certain member states.

The EU is already treating the referendum result as hostile besides (IOW assigning blame), shutting the UK out of EU activities even before any action on Article 50, even more so with Barnier’s actions here—so they reveal their true views on the withdrawal of any member state.

So rebus sic stantibus is the only logical move here, to stymie further aggression on the EU’s part (especially the ability thereof for same) and to knock the legs out from under the “Remain” camp.

[Olog-hai]

PS. Barnier doing this is yet another violation of the treaty on behalf of the EU. That makes the case for rebus sic stantibus even stronger since the EU is committing more hostile actions and is, besides, violating pacta sunt servanda for its own goals.